Sarkozy Launches on Twitter: Campaign Slogan ‘France Forte’ Trends Worldwide

It came as no surprise, when French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his reelection campaign for France's 2012 election. French presidential elections take place in two rounds. The first takes place on April 22 and is an open election in which a large number of candidates representing multiple parties will campaign. After the first vote, the winners of first and second place will go head to head on May 6. With the final vote less than four months away Sarkozy announced his official slogan La France Forte! (Strong France!). The words have more of a ring to them in French, and in response French twitter users flooded the site with their opinions and criticisms of Sarkozy and his new catchphrase, causing France Fort to temporarily trend worldwide while it currently continues to trend in France.

Sarkozy's main opposition is the Socialist party (France's largest left leaning party) leader Francois Hollande, who has already rolled out his own campaign slogan, Le changement, c'est maintenant (Change is now). Hollande is currently leading in polls, and the embattled French president also faces pressure from the far right in the form of Marine Le Pen, who is taking the reins of her party, The national Front (FN), from her father for the first time.

Taking to the popular social media site to voice their reactions, several users pointed out that the URL for Sarkozy's slogan is already being used as an artists' blog.

Krimat Mohamed joked, yes France is strong, but not its president ;)

Substance M qualified the slogan, writing, France is strong in chocolate.

Piedminu, a self-described progressive citizen, wrote For a France that is strong, tan, intellectual, blonde and catholic.

Olivier Tesquet, a writer, noted France tweets strong.

While, Dédé Lateur reacted to the strong Twitter showing, writing, This story of Strong France will assure hours and hours of French bashing from our American friends.

Nicolas Sarkozy launched his own twitter account today after announcing his campaign, and has already gained over 40,000 followers.